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Rating: 
Summary: ha!
Review: A good second book to have. I suggest getting the Lynda HOT book first, though, cos this one simply makes too many leaps, leaves too much unsaid. A reason behind doing certain things would certainly be a plus in the next edition. Some of the lessons can be hard to understand at first: Through no fault of mine I had to go back a redo certain portions 2-3 times. I'm usually pretty adept at following books like these, so I can only chalk it up to poor explanation. But it's still a good foundation book, and props also to its unique one-project/modular approach. The key to learning AE, though, is to move through three or four of these book quickly in succession. Good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: A thorough tutorial of the After Effects software.
Review: A tutorial driven book whereas the student completes 11 lessons total with the end goal of creating an 18 second movie playable for either television or web. (Note: This book is compatible with either the "Macintosh" or Windows" version.)These lessons are presented in a procedure-like fashion so ultimately the student learns this program with his or her "hands" rather than by verbal instruction or explanation. Each lesson is thorough and complete in teaching the student how to import various formats, manipulate them, animate, transform and composite them into a coherent animation. Also covered are lens flare effects, text effects, and adjusting live action footage. Ultimately, this book is quite competent in teaching all of the above in a step-by-step manner. Each lesson takes about a half-hour to an hour to do so if you are motivated you can burn through this entire book in a fast weekend. My animation experience is primarily with Macromedia FLASH so I figured that when I opened up the "After Effects" manual it would all come to me in a "whooshing epiphany". This was not the case since "After Effects" is quite rich in content and complexity and it requires lots of practice and detail driven tutorials to really grasp this program. Subsequently, this book provided me with the understanding and tutorials I needed to really learn this program
Rating: 
Summary: Very good, but....
Review: AE 6 is a revolution from 5.5, and I've only had it two days. This book is very well written and presented, and the examples and the project it has you create give a really good overview of the program.
BUT... Sadly, it barely touches on any of the amazing new capabilities of the program and is therefore pretty much redundant for experienced users. Far more useful and informative are the help files within the program itself - tutorials and examples of the new functions. I'd recommend this for new users only.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction
Review: I thought this book was an excellent introduction to After Effects. You work on a single, meaningful project throughout the book. This book focuses only on After Effects - it mentions other products but only in passing - appropriate, I feel, for a beginner tutorial. It's also meant to be used in tandem with the user guide for further explanation of certain topics. Are you going to want more after this? Absolutely. This is only a start but a very good one.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was completely disappointed with this book. It works with tutorials of simple PSD shape files. I am a newbie at After Effects but I heard so much but how it interacts 100% with Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop that I expected more of that in that book. There is no reference on how to mask Alpha Channels of PSD files or even in depth interaction with Photoshop. I know that this is a begginers book but at least by the end we could have something more advanced.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was completely disappointed with this book. It works with tutorials of simple PSD shape files. I am a newbie at After Effects but I heard so much but how it interacts 100% with Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop that I expected more of that in that book. There is no reference on how to mask Alpha Channels of PSD files or even in depth interaction with Photoshop. I know that this is a begginers book but at least by the end we could have something more advanced.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the classroom
Review: This book is for anything but the classroom. The material is too complex for new students. I used it in three sessions. I could not get over the stress of teaching it. My students found that AE is too hard. It seems that the writers ignored that people have short memories. They expected the readers to keep up with a long project, the subject of the book. I found that the Meyer books had a better approach.
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